This chapter is from the book

In this chapter, you learn how to make an iPhone into your iPhone. Topics include the following:

Getting started

Setting the screen’s brightness, view, text size, and wallpaper

Setting Passcode, Touch ID, and Auto-Lock preferences

Choosing the sounds your iPhone makes

Configuring notifications

Configuring the Control Center

Setting Do Not Disturb preferences

Setting keyboard, language, and format options

Setting restrictions for content and apps

Setting accessibility options

Customizing your Home screens

There are lots of ways that you can turn an iPhone into your iPhone so that it works, looks, and sounds the way you want it to. Some examples include changing how text appears on the screen, creating and using text shortcuts, choosing the sounds your iPhone uses, configuring the notifications your iPhone displays and plays to keep you informed about what’s happening, and more. One important customization that goes beyond just looks or sounds is to make your phone more secure by configuring and using a passcode (all models) and fingerprint (iPhone 5s and later) and restricting access to content and apps.

Getting Started

To do most of this personalization of your iPhone, you use the Settings app, which you’ve seen several times in the previous chapters. This app is the starting place for almost all of the customization of your iPhone’s settings, such as the email accounts you use and the sounds your iPhone makes, and of the iPhone’s default apps, such as Mail, Messages, and Photos along with any apps you download and install.

If you’ve read previous chapters, you’ve already used the Settings app a couple of times. Aptly named, the Settings app is where you configure the many settings that change how your iPhone looks, sounds, and works. Most of the tasks in this chapter involve the Settings app.

Using the Settings App on Any iPhone

You can work with the Settings app on any iPhone as follows:

On the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings app opens. The app is organized in sections starting at the top with controls you use to enable, disable, or configure key functions of your iPhone including Airplane mode, Wi-Fi, and so on. The next set of tools configures notifications, the Control Center, and the Do No Disturb function. The third group includes General, Display & Brightness, Wallpaper, Sounds, Touch ID & Passcode, and Privacy. Beneath those is a section with iCloud and iTunes & App Store settings. The remainder of the sections are the settings you use to configure how specific apps work, such as Notes, Reminders, and so on.

Swipe up or down the screen to get to the settings area you want to use.

Use the resulting controls to configure that area. The changes you make take effect immediately.

When you’re done, you can leave the Settings app where it is or tap the Back button, which is always located in the upper-left corner of the screen, until you get back to the main Settings screen to go into other Settings areas.

Tap the Settings app to open it. In the left pane, you see the areas of the Settings app that you can configure. In the right pane, you see tools you can use to configure the selected function. The two panes are independent, making navigation easier than with other iPhones.

Use the tools in the right pane to configure the setting you selected in step 6. These work just as described in the previous task and throughout this chapter except that you move within the right pane instead of changing the entire screen.

To move back through the screens in the right pane, use the Back button, which is labeled with the name from the screen you came from.

Tap another area in the left pane to configure it. The split screen makes it very easy to quickly switch between Settings.

Chapter Shorthand

For almost all the tasks you read about in this chapter, you use the Settings app. The first step in these tasks is always to open the related settings area; you use the steps in the previous tasks to do this. These steps are not repeated in the following tasks. Instead, the tasks start with you selecting the settings area you need. So, when you see something like “Tap Display & Brightness,” it means you should move into the Settings app, swipe up or down until you see the area you need (Display & Brightness for example), and then tap it. If you were previously using a different area in the Settings app, you need to tap the Back button to return to the main Settings screen and then find and tap the area you want to use.